By Princewill Ekwujuru
MediaReach OMD, a media Independent agency, which specialises in media planning; buying  & control services in West and Central Africa in a survey report said the telecommunication sector of the economies of Nigeria and Ghana have been identified as the highest spender on  Above_The_Line (ATL)advertising  with a total of N15.096 and 43.5 billion cedis respectively in 2009.

This was contained in the in the just released Mediafacts Addendum, a comprehensive analyses of Above -the-line (ATL) advertising spends in Nigeria and Ghana, produced and released by the agency for  West and the Central Afric region..

In Nigeria,  the report said that the telecommunication sector accounted for I5.096 billion Naira in the total spend of N90.925 billion, while in Ghana the sector recorded 43.5 billion Ghanaian cedi out of a total of 184.9 billion cedi.
The report further observed that in Nigeria, the banking and finance segment of the market spent next to telecommunications on ATL advertising accounting for 6.176 billion naira. while in Ghana the next in line was corporate and multi_brand segment of the market which spent 18.4 billion cedi. The lowest spending segment of the ATL advertising market in Nigeria is seasoning and herbs.

In both countries, television advertising raked in the highest revenue. In Ghana 58 percent of the total advertising spend went to television while in Nigeria it clinched 42.2 percent.  Radio advertising attracted the second highest advert revenue in Ghana while out_of_home is next to television in the Nigerian ATL advertising market.
According to mediaReach OMD, the fastest growing ATL advertising market in Nigeria is out_of_home advertising.  This segment accounted in 2008 for 9.516 billion naira, taking about 17.1 percent of the total spends of that year. Meanwhile in 2009, it raked in 24.250 billion or 26. 7 percent of the total spend and came next to television in attracting revenue.

One other highlight of the latest Mediafacts Addendum is the fact that print media got the bulk of its advert revenue in Nigeria from personal paid announcements, raking in 4.181 billion naira. Ghana’s print media on the other hand, still made the bulk of advertising money from telecommunications.

On an annual basis mediaReach OMD publishes the Mediafacts Book and its supplementary publication which contains the analyses and insights into the movement of advertising spends in West Africa. The company prides itself as the one_stop shop for media advertising issues.

“At mediaReach OMD, we are very passionate about our vision to be Nigeria’s and indeed West & Central Africa’s number one specialist media planning and buying services company. Over the past decade we have worked tirelessly not only to gain but to retain this position.

We are motivated by the tremendous opportunities and possibilities which the future holds and are today empowering ourselves to be at the cutting edge to provide outstanding solutions as the media landscape changes” said Tolu Ogunkoya, the regional Managing Director of the company.